There comes a point in a friendship when honesty comes
naturally.
If for 25 years, you held this grip on thousands of
people, sincerity would become second nature. All inclination
to lie, even a white lie, would be blasphemy. This camraderie,
desired by many, had by few, is precisely what Mike
Barnicle had at The Boston Globe, and lost.
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Now, years after Barnicle raised a terrible stink for
falsifying his down-homey stories for the Globe, he’s
back; this time, as a columnist for the Boston Herald.
He wasn’t hired as an instrument of ironic self-mockery,
as one might expect from the sensationalist rag that aggressively
brought him down and shoved his face in the mud. The Herald
wishes to revitalize the effect Barnicle once had, to
use the man as an extravagant advertisement regardless
of the shame he brought upon the journalistic community
and Boston as a whole.
It seems ridiculous to parade this crooked fabricator around, even for the
sake of newspaper sales. Or perhaps not — for
the Herald is a business. The paper specializes in local
news and sports coverage, fiercely competing with the
Globe for sales. Herald publisher Patrick Purcell has
sales in mind, and obviously wishes to cash in on the
ignorance and sentimentality of readers, who will, and
have, flocked back to Barnicle with substantial enthusiasm.
Barnicle’s downfall from the Globe was highly
publicized, and caused numerous organizations to rethink
and suspect their own star writers. To this day, teachers
use his debacle as what not to do in journalism ethics
courses. Yet his popularity never ceased. Since 1998,
Barnicle worked steadily in and around the Boston area
— as a columnist for the New York Daily News,
talk-show host for WTKK-FM and a contributor to MSNBC
and “Chronicle” on WCVB-TV. He still cashes
in smiley points, but now he’s less a friend than
an estranged high-school classmate who crashes on the
couch for a couple of days before disappearing again.
Since arriving at the Herald, Barnicle met fierce opposition
and sarcastic remarks from the Herald news staffers
union on March 9, according to the Globe. (Ironic how
the Globe — the paper that originally avoided
the topic of Barnicle’s follies, yet possibly
was responsible for much of them — now reports
on all things Barnicle related; whereas the Herald had
the earliest initiative to expose the columnist’s
lies, and now is hypocritically tripping on its own
heels.) Rebellion from within the ranks naturally made
further headlines, and acted as a promotional tool for
Barnicle’s comeback.
His all-too-warm welcome creates negative undertones
for journalism. Recent strings of plagiarism cases have
morphed perpetrators into shame-faced celebrities of
the moment. Stephen Glass, faker of more than half of
his pieces for The New Republic, went on numerous talk
shows before wasting his creativity on “The Fabulist,”
a fictional account of his personal downfall. He also
had a movie made about his experiences: “Shattered
Glass,” starring Hayden Christiansen of “Star
Wars” fame. Similarly, former New York Times writer
Jayson Blair pumped out a worst-seller, “Burning
Down My Master’s House” which sold only
1,400 copies in its first week, according to The Associated
Press. He also made many talk-show appearances.
This staging of misdeeds is a direct page out of the
reality TV handbook; the more fetid, the better. Both
Glass and Blair have blamed their ethical shortcomings
on depression, even going so far as to hold their respective
publications responsible for failing to recognize the
symptoms. Suddenly, they’re victims instead of
victimizers, shifting the blame from how false reports
misled millions of people to the editors who allowed
the reports to happen. Either way, they’re celebrities,
and society has rewarded them for being scumbags, even
if just for a little while.
Yet Barnicle doesn’t seem to be disappearing
like the aforementioned writers, who’ve had their
15 minutes and disappeared; instead, his prizes and
popularity have grown. To ensure the Barnicle Carnival
does not repeat itself, the industry has adopted stricter
measures. New technology has surfaced that can scan
billions of digital documents and check for plagiarism,
reported CNN.com. The United Nations Security Council
uses software such as Glatt Plagiarism Services, MyDropBox
and iParadigms. The programs even played a significant
role in former USA Today reporter Jack Kelley’s
unraveling. Kelley was a Pulitzer Prize nominee.
This technology exists because no one can be trusted
any more — not report writers for the government,
not reporters for the newspaper. The series of fraud
cases have demystified the newspaper’s allure
and trashed its once stalwart credibility. The American
public is so starved for the affection and camaraderie
it once took for granted that it’s willing to
believe anything, just as long as that warm feeling
returns. Even when Barnicle made racist comments on
his radio program, no one asked for a Trent Lott resignation,
nor was Barnicle publicly shamed. He denied the charge
and the day went on. It’s as if we’ve finally
embraced the corruptibility of informational sources.
We believe, out of fear of exclusion, whatever hypocritical
or nonsensical dog shit thrown our way.
For that I say, “Read on, dear comrades.”
We’ll spin lies together and get away with it,
even praised for our poor ethics. Sure, we’ll
never make honest and decent friendships, but the stories
told along the way should keep us at least temporarily
sated.
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